Kanye West Confirms Bon Iver Cameo On Upcoming Album

Kanye West has always been a man of discerning taste — check the roughly 18,000 fashion-related posts on his blog, or his sampling of Daft Punk on his massive hit “Stronger” — but earlier this week, when rumors began circulating that he was working with austere indie auteur Bon Iver (aka Justin Vernon), they seemed, frankly, too discerning to be true.

But on Friday (August 13), West confirmed that Vernon will appear on his upcoming new album, which is supposedly due November 16
.

“I called [Vernon] and we ended up becoming, like, really good friends, playing basketball together every day, and going into the back studio and just recording his parts,” West told
target="_blank">Rolling Stone. “He’s similar to me, like where he just does sh–; so people would be like ‘Oh sh–, how did you do that? How did that happen?’ ”

West and Vernon collaborated on a song called “Lost in the World,”
which features re-recorded vocals from the Bon Iver track “Woods.”
West told Rolling Stone that he became a fan of the song, which features Vernon’s Auto-Tuned vocals, when Ed Banger Records honcho Pedro Winter played him the track and talked about his plans to sample it. West then asked Winter if he could use the song instead, and quickly flew Vernon out to Hawaii.

The two quickly bonded (we like to imagine it was the basketball that did it), and West now counts Vernon as one of his friends.

“He’s just a really cool guy to be around,” West said.

On Friday, Vernon talked about the collaboration, and the pair’s budding friendship, in an interview with
target="_blank">Pitchfork.

“I think he’s very aware of the person he is, and I applaud him for that,” said Vernon. “It takes a lot of strength just to stay how he is amongst all the sh– that he’s subjected to. But I found him extremely like a bro. You could talk to him about whatever.”